InSight's Entry, Descent and Landing

InSight is short for Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport. The mission is the first outer space explorer to study the “inner space” of Mars.

The lander probes deep beneath the surface of Mars to study the fingerprints of the processes that first formed the rocky planets of our solar system.

Entry, descent, and landing (EDL) begins when the spacecraft reaches the Martian atmosphere, about 80 miles (about 128 kilometers) above the surface, and ends with the lander safe and sound on the surface of Mars six minutes later.

JPL, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, California, manages InSight for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. InSight is part of NASA's Discovery Program, managed by the agency's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. The InSight spacecraft, including its cruise stage and lander, was built and tested by Lockheed Martin Space in Denver.